MALIBU, Calif. (AP) — Two people were found dead as a pair of wildfires stretched from inland canyons to the Pacific in Southern California on Saturday, leaving people sifting through the remains of both mansions and modest homes for anything they had left.

The two bodies were found severely burned inside a car on a long residential driveway in Malibu, Los Angeles County sheriff's Chief John Benedict said. The home is on a winding stretch of Mulholland Highway with steep panoramic views, where on Saturday the roadway was littered with rocks, a few large boulders and fallen power lines, some of them still on fire. Most of the surrounding structures were leveled.

The deaths brings to 25 the number of people killed in the state's wildfires in the past few days, with 23 found dead in a Northern California wildfire.

Firefighters have saved thousands of homes despite working in "extreme, tough fire conditions that they said they have never seen in their life," Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said.

Those vicious conditions on Friday night gave way to calm Saturday, with winds reduced to breezes. No new growth was reported on the larger of the two fires, which stands at 109 square miles (282 square kilometers), and firefighters now have the blaze 5 percent contained.

"It was way too big a firestorm," said Lani Netter, whose Malibu home was spared while her neighbor's burned. "We had tremendous, demonic winds is the only way I can put it."

The flames also burned inland through hills and canyons dotted with modest homes, reached into the corner of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, and stretched into suburbs like Thousand Oaks, a city of 130,000 people that just a few days ago saw 12 people killed in a mass shooting at a country music bar.

Park Billow, 27, sprays water on the hot spots in his backyard as the Woolsey Fire burns in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. Authorities announced Friday that a quarter of a million people are under evacuation orders as wind-whipped flames rage through scenic areas west of Los Angeles and burn toward the sea. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) (Source: Ringo H.W. Chiu)

Two houses, two barns, three trailers and decades of accumulated possessions are gone.

Fultz's mother, 61-year-old Tricia Fultz, said everyone expected the fire to stay well south of their property, but shifting winds forced them to take the horses out to open pastures as quickly as they could.

Three were still in their pens when the adjacent barn caught fire, and Tricia Fultz just had to open the pens, burning her hands and hoping for the best.

In this Friday, Nov. 9, 2018 photo, smoke from the wildires fills the air in Malibu, Calif. Los Angeles County fire Chief Daryl Osby said Saturday that firefighters told him they were working in the toughest, most extreme conditions they had seen in their lives on Friday night. He says conditions are far better Saturday, with a lull in winds that are expected to return Sunday. (Courtesy of Ben Watkins via AP) (Source: AP)

She, her husband and six others rode out the fire in a tunnel a short distance up the road as the fire burned the hillsides above and all around them.

"It's so surreal because it's so dark, and when we're in the tunnel you can't see anything," Tricia Fultz said. "There was so much burning and so much black."

A Spanish-style home is consumed by flames on Dume Drive in the Point Dume area of Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. Known as the Woolsey Fire, it has consumed tens of thousands of acres and destroyed multiple homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) (Source: Reed Saxon)

The fire hopscotched around the Oak Park neighborhood of 70-year-old Bill Bengston, leaving most houses untouched.

The home for 22 years of Bengston and his wife, Ramona, was the only house on his block that burned. And it burned everything.

A firefighter walks by the a burning home in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. A Southern California wildfire continues to burn homes as it runs toward the sea. Winds are blamed for pushing the fire through scenic canyon communities and ridgetop homes. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu) (Source: Ringo H.W. Chiu)

"It's all gone," he said softly as he sifted through the remains. "It's all gone."

The hardest to lose were the photos and the mementos handed down through the family — a cigar box that belonged to his great-grandfather; the handcuffs his father carried in World War II.

Wind-driven flames from a wildfire race up a slope and cross the road in Malibu, Calif., Friday, Nov. 9, 2018. Known as the Woolsey Fire, it has consumed tens of thousands of acres and destroyed multiple homes. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) (Source: Reed Saxon)

The area burning in Southern California is in severe drought, U.S. government analysts said. California emerged from a five-year statewide drought last year but has had a very dry 2018, pushing parts of the state back into drought and leaving others, like the area of the Northern California fire, abnormally dry.

In this Friday, Nov. 9, 2018 photo, smoke from the wildires fills the air in Malibu, Calif. Los Angeles County fire Chief Daryl Osby said Saturday that firefighters told him they were working in the toughest, most extreme conditions they had seen in their lives on Friday night. He says conditions are far better Saturday, with a lull in winds that are expected to return Sunday. (Courtesy of Ben Watkins via AP) (Source: AP)